Rapper Phife Dawg Dies of Diabetes

The death at 45 of Malik "Phife Dawg" Taylor of A Tribe Called Quest shines a glaring spotlight on blacks' vulnerability to diabetes, the condition he battled for decades, and which ultimately claimed his life.

African American adults are "80 percent more likely" than white adults to have been diagnosed with diabetes, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, which also found in 2013 that African Americans were twice as likely as to die from the disease.

Taylor made his long-running battle with Type 2 diabetes public in the 1993 song "Oh My God," rapping, "When's the last time you heard a funky diabetic?" His condition was aggravated, by an uncontrolled sweet tooth, he admitted in Beats, Rhymes and Life, a 2011 documentary about the history of Tribe, where Taylor said: "Like straight-up drugs. I'm just addicted to sugar."

Unchecked, diabetes can lead to dire health outcomes, including blindness, limb amputation, and kidney failure. The disease was a primary cause of kidney failure in 44 percent of new cases in 2011, with blacks suffering from kidney failure at a rate three times higher than whites.

Taylor's condition worsened to the point that he received a kidney transplant from his wife in 2008, while still in his 30s. An All Hip Hop article from that year reported that Taylor was first diagnosed with diabetes in 1990, and went on dialysis in 2000, during which time he had difficulty performing and dropped considerable weight.

It's a strain on me as far as going where I want to go, doing what I want to do," he told the BBC. "When I was on dialysis the first time, my stepson was playing basketball [and] I couldn't practice with him. I wanted to go out and run with him and things of that nature, but I didn't feel good."

Though his prospects appeared to look up with the new kidney, four years later he was reportedly back on the waiting list for yet another one, and then on March 22 he succumbed to complications from diabetes.